African Bird Pictures - Pg1

Our birds gallery has been included to provide some variety to all the African mammal photos.

It's taken time, but friends have gradually convinced me that watching - and photographing - birds can be as
enjoyable as viewing larger wildlife when visiting nature reserves.

However, photographing birds from a vehicle is not easy. Ideally you need a powerful 600mm super-telephoto lens to bring the subject close enough
to ensure you get a worthwhile image and not just a tiny speck in the center of the frame.

Southern Double-collared Sunbird

Click on picture to enlarge.

Hugely Expensive Lenses
Powerful telephoto lenses are not only hugely expensive, but they are not designed to be hand-held -
ideally they should be
supported by a heavy tripod to reduce camera shake.

To eliminate any camera shake even further, the
camera's shutter should be fired using a remote or cable release.

That's not easy when you're in the passenger seat of a vehicle with a bunch of other people.

So my bird photography has been limited, not only by lack of suitable equipment, but also by lack of enthusiasm as a result.

Not only are there affordable cameras available with powerful 24x or more zoom lenses, but the "consumer" SLR digitals
(like the Canon EOS 600D and Nikon D90) have a built-in multiplication or crop factor of 50% to 60%.

So using a 400mm F5.6 lens (or a 300mm lens with a 1.4x converter) is like shooting with a 600mm. Add image stabilization and
it becomes much more feasible to photograph birds from your vehicle while visiting game and nature reserves.